


Apotheosis

by ladyofrosefire



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Kinda, Post-Canon, Vax is a god now I don't make the rules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 16:04:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13217247
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyofrosefire/pseuds/ladyofrosefire
Summary: After his death, Vax'ildan finds a place in the realm of the Raven Queen





	Apotheosis

After his mother, after Vilya and Tiberius, She takes him to a deep, red pool. He knows it for her realm, her power, as soon as he sees it. His armor melts away into the shadows, his boots, his knives. He walks into its center and breathes deep.

It’s not breathing as he knew it when he was alive. And yet, his lungs labor to draw it in. This power is thick and hot like blood. It scalds the insides of his still lungs, blazes through his veins, burns in his heart. It suffuses every cell, ever fiber. His hair scorches away, and then grows back. He burns. He burns, and he burns, and he burns until he forgets his own name. Until everything mortal has been burned through, and the impurities disappear in curls of smoke. It empties him. For a moment, he panics, fights against it. Death did not scare him, but this overwhelming loss does. It seems to go on and on. Until finally, it changes. Pieces drift back, like falling snow. He cannot grasp them, but he is more than a shell. His limbs are heavy with it, and he cannot stand under the weight of this new divinity.

She collects Her power back into Herself. He lies naked, limp, and pale on whatever floor this place has, watching Her. The red light of it drips, viscous, through the eyes of Her mask, until She glows with it. He can feel the pulse of that power in each and every limb, from feet to newly regrown hair. Movement comes back slowly. He pushes himself half upright, arms shaking with the weight of this new power, and-- And with the weight of the wings that stretch out behind him. He is blood-slick and weak, trembling like a colt. She takes him in her arms. She cleans the blood from his skin and kisses his eyes, his lips, his throat. The shadows of Her robes melt away. His wings curl around them.

Afterward, he remembers his name again. He remembers Percy, and Pike, and Grog, and Scanlan. He remembers Keyleth. He remembers Vex like a missing lung. His new power flares red-gold down the feathers of his wings.

The Raven Queen sets her hand on his shoulder.

It takes time to learn this. He pieces his armor back together, first, his boots, his knives. He thinks about returning them to the Material Plane. He does not. He cut Keyleth’s hair with Whisper. He and Vex squabbled over the boots. The armor would only go to another champion when they do not need one. She has raised him and crowned him and given him a piece of her kingdom.

Armed and armored, he flies. Vax travels along the familiar flash of the Divine Gate, as close to its threads as he dares. He flies and he looks and he listens.

The voices come slowly, at first. His sister. Percy. Gilmore. Scanlan. Pike. Tary. Grog. Keyleth. Then Allura, Kima, Cassandra, Kynan, Kashaw, Zahra. Vex and Percy’s children, all five of them, one after another. Keyleth.

His name spreads, but it’s not his name, not past that group. People tell a story in Vasselheim, in the Raven’s Crest, about how the Champion of the Raven Queen fought against Vecna with the Champions of Pelor and Sarenrae and Ioun, with one who bore Kord’s Titanstone Knuckles, with a man for whom gods meant nothing, with the Voice of the Tempest. They call him Champion. They call him the Raven Prince.

Keyleth calls his name, still.

The story spreads, one of a living shadow with more mercy than his queen. Now others call to him. A soldier fights in the midst of a horde of skeletons and calls. A priestess holds a dying woman and calls. A man says words over a fresh grave and calls. He answers. With each, his power grows. He answers, and answers, and answers.

Keyleth.

Keyleth. For ages and ages.

He pours his power into the raven, watching through its eyes as it sits with her and talks. Vax sees the tree growing, sees her growing with it. She has books. Over time, she becomes more graceful, stronger, more sure. She loses the bumbling uncertainty, but never that love of people, never the desire to fight for what is fair, and to make the world bleed when it isn’t. She is so beautiful that his heart forgets it is divine and _aches_.

_“Look at her…”_

**_“She is not ours.”_ **

“ _I know.”_

He loves her the more for it.

As a God, he has almost forgotten how to cry. He races from call to call, gathering power, gathering strength and resolve and casting them through the Gate. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn’t. He cannot gather enough to take Clerics and Paladins of his own. He can only bolster the people who call for them when he’s lucky. There are more who call to him every day, it seems. He tries, and he tries, and he fails, and he rails against the Gate until he is drenched in something that is not quite blood and his wings are torn and his armor is in tatters.

It is there that the queen finds him, at the edge of their kingdom, his forehead against the burning lattice of the gate.

 **_“My beautiful champion…”_ ** She takes him into her arms again, **_“You cannot save them all.”_ **

She wipes away the blood, as she had when she first remade him, and cups his face in her hands. Her lips brush his forehead, his cheeks, his mouth.

 _“I won’t accept that_ . _”_ He tells her, but he goes with her regardless and lets her show him how to heal himself before she pulls him down to her.

They are not lonely here. Few stay for long in this place, but many visit, and they can travel. And when she must sit on her throne and mind her golden web, he sits at her feet with Whisper in hand. When she cuts a thread, he flies free.

And, slowly, he gathers his family to him again. None of them are surprised to see him. None are even surprised to meet him as a God, although it makes Percy laugh until he’s almost sick. Keyleth, of course, is last of all, stepping into his arms and into her tree.

The stories change, after that.

The Raven Prince appears on battlefields, still, at funerals, at deathbeds. But there are flowers in his hands. He appears at harvest festivals beside a woman crowned with antlers. They speak of the sound of his laughter, an easy smile, the scent of snowdrops.

**_“It is easier, my beloved, if you leave your mortality behind.”_ **

She’s right. Even he can recognize that. Even now, the voices of the mortals claw at him. They drag him to the gate again and again, fighting past it to give them some of his power, his blessing. He succeeds more often than he used to. The first time one of her acolytes, _their_ acolytes, calls for aid and he can answer, he slips through the lattice in a streak of shadow. She’s in the middle of a cavern, Vecna’s symbol painted on the walls, his people raising her fallen compatriots against her. She stands bloody, clutching a sword, her eyes wide and wild.

He wants to cut a swath through them, to scythe them down and save this one.

The Raven Prince spreads his wings.

The scent of snowdrops fills the room.

Whisper arcs through the air.

Around him, spells unravel. Color returns to the faces of the dead companions. Their hearts restart. Their eyes become clear and bright. The cultists fall back in confusion and horror as the party rallies again. The acolyte has tears rolling down her cheeks as she turns on the nearest enemy.

Then Vax disappears.

 **_“You did well, my champion_ ** **.”**

“Vax!”

He catches Keyleth in his arms and buries his face in her hair. _“For you.”_ He murmurs. _“It was for you.”_

It was for the queen, as well, and they all know it. This is how it will be. He has always been a child of two worlds. He has always thrown himself into everything he has loved. He has always loved without restraint or thought. He loves Keyleth, bright and full of joy again, who believes so fiercely in the importance of every living thing. He loves his queen with her dark eyes, no longer quite so lonely, and her impassivity. He has his place between them-- their prince, their lover, their champion. He is what they will make of him.

When he goes to his knees, it is for both of them.


End file.
